Zombie Parade

The Zombie Parade is an annual Bloomington tradition in which participants dress like zombies and march downtown scaring and entertaining passerby. It takes place every year on October 30 at 10pm and starts at the Sample Gates of the Indiana University campus.

Contents

History

The Bloomington Zombie Parade began on October 30, 2002, by a group of Bloomington friends as a birthday celebration for an anonymous resident born on October 30. The first parade had 11 participants and was met with mostly bewilderment by spectators on the street. Subsequent parades have grown in size and taken on a life of their own, with the parade keeping the same date, time, and route since. It now includes hundreds of zombies unaffiliated with the original organizers.

Highlights

The 2003 parade coincided with a showing of the zombie film 28 Days Later in the Indiana Memorial Union on the IU campus. After the traditional path down Kirkwood Ave and up Walnut St, the zombies advanced onto the union and made a surprise grand entrance on the film showing, dragging off friends of the participants who had been planted in the front row. The zombies exited to applause and a standing ovation from the film audience.

The 2010 parade saw the first counter-movement against the zombies, where 15 individuals in a large white van, dressed in protective hazardous materials clothing, attempted to corral the zombies and warned civilians of a zombie outbreak.